Discussions of secession in the U.S. are weighed down with the baggage of the Civil War. This legacy may not just burden American’s view of secession as a domestic issue, but also the general concept. The U.S. has opposed secessionist tendencies abroad, even when they were obviously salutary, such as the break-up of the USSR and Yugoslavia, and continues to oppose the break-up of Iraq and other unhappy unions.

Important recent work in political science has helped us better understand the economics of state size. At the same time, secessionist movements have gained broad followings in major Western European democracies, even at a time that nationalism in Europe is thought to be at a nadir. These developments (and not the various U.S. petitions, about which Eugene recently wrote) motivate this post.

Secession seems a good idea on libertarian grounds in that heterogenous preferences can be better accommodated on a smaller scale. Alesina and Spolaore famously theorize optimal state size as optimizing between economies of scale and heterogenous preferences of nationals: the former is increasing on size, the latter decreasing. For optimality to be maintained, there must be some process shaping the size of state other than accretion. Otherwise, one would expect that all countries in equilibrium would be too big.

Quite frankly, I'm kinda sorta open to it too these days. You can have Texas and the deep south. Good ****ing riddance. I'm assuming Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida will stick around, but I'm not married to Florida.

Republicans up here in civilization could stop kowtowing to the religious right's bullshit socially divisive issues and we could actually come up with intelligent solutions and policy. Even "fiscal conservatives" like noted lunatic Grover Norquist devise most of their power from the intellectual wasteland of the South.

the thing is that red states tend to get more federal funding than blue states do and contribute less so I say good riddance, **** em

The flipside is that Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Alaska, et al don't benefit to the extent that they could from their own natural resources because the federal government claims rights over them. Both sides would undoubtedly benefit from the divorce.

Accused of amassing an 18-gun arsenal to protect his drug business, Bjorkstam is said to have defended Swift to police, describing him as a "good guy" who helped him try to collect a heroin debt but did not deal drugs himself.

"People have been ripping me off," Bjorkstam told police, according to charging papers. "Rob and I are trying to put a stop to that."

The flipside is that Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Alaska, et al don't benefit to the extent that they could from their own natural resources because the federal government claims rights over them. Both sides would undoubtedly benefit from the divorce.

You ever look at an Interstate roadway map of Texas? Losing federal funding for 90% of Interstate roadway construction and repairs in that state and Texas becomes North Mexico.

The flipside is that Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Alaska, et al don't benefit to the extent that they could from their own natural resources because the federal government claims rights over them. Both sides would undoubtedly benefit from the divorce.

And what extent is that? Is it enough to be on your own completely?

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"GOT…damn! And I know Rubio saw it at like 4 in the morning and started crying and told them hoes from Ibiza to get the **** outta his room. And he said it in Spanish, too, so he looked like an angry drug dealer in a Michael Mann film. GOOD! How’s that for the league’s image, Stern? You ****ing *******. His name is Brandon…he from Compton…he got rapper friends…and he’s your league’s next superstar. Cry!

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Knicks fans, can you imagine what Jennings is going to do to you? He’s gonna be slicing through that defense like V for Vendetta. Then, after the game, he’s gonna slice through security and find Donnie Walsh and stab him in the damn heart.

I guess Kobe feels like averaging 30 again. At this point, he’s like Keanu at the end of the first Matrix. He became who he was supposed to be and now he’s just gonna do whatever he wants.

Well, what those states get out of it is employment of their citizens, but the federal government keeps the royalties on all the gulf oil produced, and those would be territorial waters of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, etc.. So, yes, there's a fair amount of coin involved. Add in the reality that there'd be no more federal corporate income tax rate on companies there and they would be able to collect a higher percentage there, as well.

Accused of amassing an 18-gun arsenal to protect his drug business, Bjorkstam is said to have defended Swift to police, describing him as a "good guy" who helped him try to collect a heroin debt but did not deal drugs himself.

"People have been ripping me off," Bjorkstam told police, according to charging papers. "Rob and I are trying to put a stop to that."